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Pantikapaion, Thrace

Panticapaeum (Kerch, Ukraine today) on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, was founded by Milesians in the late 7th - early 6th century B.C. In the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., the city was the residence first of the Archaeanactids and then of the Spartocids dynasties of Thracian kings of Bosporus. The last of the Spartocids, left his realm to Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus. Half of a century later, Mithridates himself took his life in Panticapaeum, when, after his defeat in a war against Rome, his own son and heir Pharnaces and citizens of Panticapaeum turned against him. In 63 B.C. the city was partly destroyed by an earthquake. Raids by the Goths and the Huns furthered its decline. It was incorporated into the Byzantine state under Justin I in the early 6th century A.D. The city was lost to the Khazars in the 7th century, but was regained by the Byzantines during the 8th century. Panticapaeum became independent from the empire in the 10th century, forming the Khanate of Korchev, but was retaken by the Byzantines again in the 11th century. After the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204, Panticapaeum passed to the Byzantine Empire's successor state the Empire of Trebizond. By now referred to as Cherson, the city was retained by Trebizond until the 14th century.